San Francisco State University (SFSU), University of California (UC), Davis (UCD), UC San Francisco, UC Los Angeles (UCLA), and UC San Diego (UCSD), called "UC Partners" hereafter, have developed a cooperative graduate program to increase the number of underrepresented minorities that pursue biomedical research careers. Our program goals are to provide underrepresented minority students with a quality and highly-focused master's degree education that prepares them to be competitive for acceptance and success in top-ranked biomedical science doctoral programs. The objectives are to ensure that the master's degree Bridge students: 1) pursue a critical and exhaustive examination of discipline subject matter graduate courses that lead to an MA/MS degree in a biomedical science (i.e. biology, biochemistry or chemistry) in two-three years; 2) achieve competitive scores on their GRE exams to ensure acceptance into a high quality biomedical PhD programs; 3) receive intense advising and the support necessary to become confident and successful graduate students; 4) participate in significant research experiences and acquire the skills required to communicate the results of those experiences in the form of theses, presentations at national scientific conferences and in peer-reviewed journals; 5) receive continual exposure to successful minority scientists to build the confidence they will need to become outstanding scientists. These objectives will be successfully met through the combination of an excellent curriculum, close and careful advising, workshops designed to provide the students with a well-rounded and in-depth knowledge of all aspects of biomedical sciences, and a nurturing and productive research experience with Bridge mentors. These activities will prepare minority students for entry into high quality PhD degree programs, and/or biomedical research careers. Forty-seven graduate students have received Bridge program financial support since 1993. Seventeen have entered doctoral programs, eight second/third year Bridge students are currently applying to PhD programs and seven first year Bridge students will apply in Fall 2000 for entrance in Fall 2001. Thus 68 percent (32/47) of all past and current SFSU Bridge participants are in position to enter and complete doctoral degrees. The first SFSU Bridge participant (Jacinto Villanueva) completed his PhD in 1999 and is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University.